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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Pessimist

In general, I try my hardest to be as optimistic as possible. I really do try to remind myself to look for the silver linings and upside to everything. Obviously, I fail sometimes...but I try.

EXCEPT...when it comes to my husband. If he works late or he's on TDY and I haven't heard from him when he says he's going to call or text I immediately think of the worst case scenarios.

Maybe he got hurt at work and can't call.

Maybe he got hurt really really bad and is unconscious and no one thought to let me know.

Maybe the car he was in was in an accident and all his friends who know how to contact me were with him and now no one will get a hold of me for days.

From then on it's a constant battle between two parts of my thinking. Half of me is freaking out. The other half is like, "Calm the f--- down you freak! That jerk probably just forgot to text you that he's going out after dinner or is working late or doesn't have an internet connection to call."

I do the same with my mom sometimes. In fact not too long ago I read a story about an Asian woman found in a Portland river. (News Report) Of course I immediately called my mom just for some peace of mind. Of course she didn't answer. I held back from calling my aunt and her work to check with them. Eventually I saw that she had signed onto Facebook and I got her on the phone later that day. But that night...I was gearing myself up for the worst and talking myself down at the same time. It was awful. She found it thoroughly entertaining when I told her my concerns.

3 comments:

I think as we get older the more pessimist part of our personality gets stronger because I do the same thing. Maybe it's because we're more aware that crappy things can happen to you and it's not just to 'people on tv'. This morning on my way to work [I leave about 30 minutes after my husband] I saw that traffic was slowing down and there was a wreck. I was on pins and needles until I could see the vehicles involved and didn't recognize any of the vehicles.

I get exactly like this, too! Angel calls me every day on the way home from work, and when he doesn't call me on time, I start imagining the worst. I'm usually practically writing an obituary in my mind and wondering what the heck I'm going to do with myself as a 21 year old widow....at the same time as trying to convince myself of the much more reasonable scenarios. His phone is out of battery because he forgot to charge it. The nurse that he was supposed to report to came in late so he had to stay extra time, etc.